This AI trend will be the hot topic at world's biggest smartphone event

  • By Adam Clark,
  • Barron's
  • – 03/02/2025
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This year is when AI agents will become the next big thing for artificial intelligence, according to Nvidia (

) CEO Jensen Huang.

It’s a theory that will be tested at Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s largest mobile and communications trade show, which is back in Barcelona from Monday.

MWC is the showcase event for new smartphones but has gradually become a broader technology show and AI has been the focus for the last two years. That won’t be any different this year but the question is whether so-called AI agents, which are programs that have the ability to take simple directions and complete multistep tasks, are ready for commercial deployment.

Telecommunications is a key proving ground for AI agents. With huge customer-service teams and complex networks ripe for automation, companies such as AT&T (

) and Verizon (
) and their global peers are natural customers and partners for AI vendors.

Amazon (

), Microsoft (
), and Google-parent Alphabet (
) will have an eye on the big prize—convincing big telecom companies to choose their public cloud infrastructure, with AI as the bait on the hook. Any major deals announced at MWC could help convince investors the tens of billions the tech companies are pouring into AI data centers is money well spent.

The competition for clients is fierce. While Microsoft won the single biggest deal so far by bringing AT&T’s 5G mobile network onto its cloud back in 2021, since then Amazon Web Services has won a string of deals. One notable recent win for AWS was bringing Comcast’s (

) 5G network onto its cloud in December.

However, software providers such as Salesforce (

) will be making the case at MWC that the real path to AI rewards is through adopting their agents for everything from dealing with customer issues to data analysis. Chip maker Nvidia will also be present at the show, pitching its hardware and software platforms as the solution for supporting AI applications and agents at the edge—potentially cutting out the cloud-computing providers.

Who makes the biggest splash at MWC will indicate how the next stage of the AI race is likely to play out.

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